All White Jury

The jury selection is complete and O.J. Simpson is to be tried by an all white jury. There are 9 women and 3 men all white comprising the jury. Also, there are two alternates who are black. Anyone see a problem with this?

LAS VEGAS - An all-white jury will judge O.J. Simpson and a co-defendant on kidnapping and robbery charges after defense lawyers lost a contentious courtroom battle to include two African-American women on the panel.
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District Attorney David Roger gave the judge what he called "race neutral" reasons for removing the two with his peremptory challenges, and defended the final makeup of the jury chosen late Thursday night, saying that two of six alternate jurors are black.

Both of the women who were removed had strong religious views, and the prosecutor said he thought one of them would be inclined to "forgive" Simpson while the other said she was hesitant to send anyone to prison.

Simpson's 1995 acquittal on murder charges came from a predominantly black jury.

Link

Anyone else have reservations with this?

It's not a jury of his peers.

It would be better if the jury's ethnicity reflected the ethnicity of the Las Vegas community. Maybe it does. I don't know anything about the Vegas population.

I think it's clumsy. If the verdict is guilty it will be automatically suspect because of the jury being white.

If they allowed an all black jury the samne could be said of any not guilty verdict.

12-13% of America is african-american. roughly 10% of las vegas is african-american. 10% of nine people is .9, which rounds to one. but including the alternates, 10% of 11 is 1.1, which also rounds to one. while it is a little bit iffy to have all 9 jury members white and both alternates black... we aren't talking anything MAJORLY statistically deviant. one in ten people are gay, too - should we question any jury that doesn't include a gay person?

glatt;483574 wrote:

It's not a jury of his peers.

But where are they going to find 12 black, ex pro football playing, sports commentating murderers?

Some of the Bengals aren't busy.

No I do not see a problem with this.

My initial thought was the same as Dana's post. I like what Ibram did with the statistics though. Interesting on the gay question too. Hmm, I wonder if that would be a relevant stance if sexuality was germane to the crime.

How is race germane to the crime?

I question the whole "peers" term.

It seems to me that the only thing they have in common is being adult (aged). My jury did not include either the truck driver or the paratransit guy. A "Peer" should be at least as well educated and a group should include gender, occupation and a germane similarity in the crime in question.

My jury was simply too stupid to get out of jury duty.

classicman;483628 wrote:

I like what Ibram did with the statistics though. Interesting on the gay question too. Hmm, I wonder if that would be a relevant stance if sexuality was germane to the crime.

Yeah, but according to your quote, there are 12 people on the jury, not 9. Plus 2 alternates. I don't know why Ibby did his calculation based on 9. It all still rounds off to 1 black juror if you are trying to mimic the general population. But it's between 1 and 2, not less than 1.

I think it would be healthy to have a couple blacks on the jury. It looks bad with all whites. I'm not gonna lose sleep over it though. They had their day in court (literally) to try to get a sympathetic jury.

How is race germane to the crime?

Im pretty sure Classicman didnt mean 'crime' per se....replace it with 'jury picks'.

My bad, I read too fast.
Okay, so. 12 jurors - still, only about 1 of them should statistically be black - and not having any isn't statistically shocking.
including alternates there's 18. 2 are black. 1.8 is 10% of 18. 1.8 rounds to about 2, so that's about right.

classicman;483572 wrote:

The jury selection is complete and O.J. Simpson is to be tried by an all white jury. There are 9 women and 3 men all white comprising the jury. Also, there are two alternates who are black. Anyone see a problem with this?

Problem with jury selection in general or problem with this particular instance?

As I understand it, both sides have a say in the jury selection. If the defense thought they'd be better off with the alternates, I'd guess they'd have been selected.

I'm amazed they could find a jury at all; most humans have some pretty deeply ingrained notions about the Juice, whether good or bad.

"Peers" is meant in contrast to a juror class, professional or aristocratic jurors who hear all cases in a given jurisdiction. It does not mean "people in my racial, gender, income demographic."

dar512;483658 wrote:

Problem with jury selection in general or problem with this particular instance?

As I understand it, both sides have a say in the jury selection. If the defense thought they'd be better off with the alternates, I'd guess they'd have been selected.

Just with him I see a real potential problem brewing since in his first trial the race of the jury was overwhelmingly black and he got off. This time they will be white and IF he gets convicted, it will bring up a bunch of racial crap that we, as a nation, have been trying to decrease. I admit I am overly sensitive to this issue, but the makeup of this jury still rankles me.

classicman;483685 wrote:

the makeup of this jury still rankles me.

Either the original article is misstating the case, or the jury is lopsided. I suspect that it should have read "all non-black jury".

According to The Peoples of Las Vegas the black population stands at just 8.3% but the Hispanics make up 38.5%.

Can you explain why it rankles you and who you are rankled with? Or is this just a gut feeling?

Gonna Get Me a Shotgun
Performed by Garrett Morris on 24 Jan 1976 SNL

I'm gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whities I see,
I'm gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whities I see.
When I kill all the whities I see, then whitey he won't bother me,
I'm gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whities I see.

dar512;483729 wrote:

Can you explain why it rankles you and who you are rankled with? Or is this just a gut feeling?

Just that the jury is/ was described as "all white" - no mention of any other race, color, creed...

Sundae Girl;483597 wrote:

But where are they going to find 12 black, ex pro football playing, sports commentating murderers?

That made me lol :)

Well....he was guilty the first time, I think.

Shawnee123;483733 wrote:

Gonna Get Me a Shotgun
Performed by Garrett Morris on 24 Jan 1976 SNL

I'm gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whities I see,
I'm gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whities I see.
When I kill all the whities I see, then whitey he won't bother me,
I'm gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whities I see.

What a memory!

Ibram;483643 wrote:

How is race germane to the crime?

[Buford T. Justice]"The Germans ain't got nothin' to do with it!"[/Buford T. Justice]

Do I see a problem with this?

No.

It was probably pretty damn difficult to find *anyone* who didn't claim to be overexposed to his murder trial, or to the subsequent civil suit (which succeeded, BTW, so somebody somewhere thought he killed his wife and her boyfriend). The main criteria for selecting a jury for this case was that they didn't have a preformed opinion about him being a criminal. That sure would have left me out.

It might not be too big a stretch to imagine that it was difficult to find an African American who either was neutral or who didn't think that this was just one more case of Whitey keeping the brother down.

Since when is OJ "the brother"? He is about as black as Bryant Gumbel.

binky;483907 wrote:

Since when is OJ "the brother"? He is about as black as Bryant Gumbel.

xtc "house parties" with a bunch of white folks don't count, I concur.
:D

Sundae Girl;483597 wrote:

But where are they going to find 12 black, ex pro football playing, sports commentating murderers?

Dallas Cowboys?

classicman;483572 wrote:

The jury selection is complete and O.J. Simpson is to be tried by an all white jury.

I hear they were all tourists from the deep South.:3_eyes: